Spending time in the kitchen.

So here are a few more things that I've been making in the kitchen.

I made a marble cake the other day which was absolutely fun! What you do is bake a normal cake and then divide it into three parts; leave one the way it is, tint one pink, and for the third part, you add a mixture of cocoa powder and milk to make it a chocolate flavour. You then add alternate tablespoons of the cake mixture to the tin and then at the end swirl a skewer through them gently to mix the colours. I find it takes a certain amount of talent to properly swirl. Otherwise- you'll end up with something that looks like it's a mix of pink or chocolate... an earthy colour... and not marbled cake. If I'm not mistaken marble cakes are also called Neopolitan cakes... so is that from Naples or Napoleon's era? The icing was a plain buttercream that was naturally yellow!

The day after that I decided to make jelly cakes, what you do is dip the cakes in jelly before it forms and then put it in the fridge. They look gorgeous when coated with desiccated coconut.

I took both these recipes from Australian Women's Weekly's "100 Classic Cakes", which is a very good book!

I've made two pastas the other day which turned out to be "classics" in my kitchen. They both don't have any sauce but instead are moistened by a combination of olive oil and balsamic vinegar coupled with some herbs. The best thing about pasta is that you can add anything you want. I added cherry tomatoes and capsicums and normal chopped Roma plum tomatoes. I always have to start with a base of onion and garlic in my pastas anyways.

Ciao
xx